LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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HE TROD A MEASURE AS HE WENT, 

AND PIPED AND SANG HIS WAY TO FLORENCE. 



—p. 25 



BALLADS 



ABOUT AUTHORS 



HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD 



ILLUSTRATIONS BY 

EDMUND H GARRETT 



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3 




BOSTON 
D LOTHROP COMPANY 

FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS 



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Copyright, 1887, by D. Lothrop Company. 



Iloxlitofll imb (!lI)«rcl;iH 

BOSTON 



CONTENTS 

Goldsmith's Whistle 13 

Samuel Johnson in Uttoxeter Market ... 29 

Blind Milton „ „ 49 

Beside the Ouse ^^K^'-^h^'-."' 65 

A Splendid Fire . _.'•.'. 83 

Woods of Warwick ............ 99 




ILLUSTRATIONS 



He trod a measure as he went, 

And piped and sang his way to Florence. 

And death confronted him, and awed him 

Some happy children sat and listened .... 

The harp was strung to gentler tune .... 

Where the poor bookseller held his stall upon fairing days 

Even the king sought him proudly .... 

Perchance he was doing a penance .... 

In silver thunders sobbing slow ..... 

Tones swelling into gathering tune, 
Like dark waves swelling to the moon. 

Ere darkness wrapped the lonely tower . 

The wars of Heaven are fought anew ! . 

Cowper and his hares ...... 

The sunshine seemed a winding-sheet . 



Frontis. ^ 

23/ 
33 ' 

4W 



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ILL USTRA TIONS. 



With lilies floating on its lireast 

In rainbows glowed his garden-side 

Daydreams once all his own, and hopes 

Along the streets with heedless haste 

That night when Collins burned his odes 

Chaucer's was the verse he carried 

" Master ! " 'twas a cry of music, 

Queen Titania's voice, oh hearken ! . 

" Into lands of antique story, Master, 
You alone can send us ! " . 



Warwick Castle, from the Avon .... 

Also portraits and numerous vignettes. 



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77'' 

89 J 

lOI ^ 

107 ^/ 

109 
III 




BALLADS 
ABOUT AUTHORS 



GOLDSMITH'S WHISTLE 




A LIGHT heart had the Irish lad, 

As Hght as any in the land, 
And surely that was all he had. 

Save the King's English, at command ! 
Nay, Greek had he, a goodly store, 

Though not a penny came to mock it ; 
Well, well, and he had something more — 

He had a whistle in his pocket ! 



Ay, Greek he had, pure root and stem ; 

And that they had not at Louvain, 
And that they wanted not — for them 

Nor Plato spoke nor Homer sang. 
And he had dreamed of classes there. 

And he had crossed the deep seas over, 
Determined in a scholar's chair 

With cap and gown to live in clover. 
13 



14 GOLDSMITH'S WHISTLE. 

But dean nor don of that famed school 

Cared for the lore the stranger brought, 
Greek was not in their time-worn rule, 

And all his silver speech was naught. 
Strange land, strange ways, strange faces, too ; 

A land that flowed with milk and honey — ■ 
And no word of their tongue he knew, 

And had no stiver of their money. 

He supped that night beside the brook, 

That night he slept beneath the hedge ; 
Dark was the great sky's dreary look, 

Hope gave no promise, fate no pledge. 
And when the morning came, despair 

Hung over him, and hunger gnawed him — 
He was so young, and life so fair, 

And death confronted him, and awed him. 

And then — he was an Irish lad — 

The April in him had its way ; 
Sun shining, should not one be glad } 

Birds singing, one not match their play .'' 
Soft blew the breeze his tears to wipe. 

And there, upon the grassy hummock, 
He laughed at care, and took his pipe, 

And played a tune to stay his stomach. 



GOLDSMITH'S WHISTLE. 17 

He played, nor knew of any nigh, 

Lost for the hour in sweet employ, 
Till through his dream there stole a cry, 

A little chirping note of joy ; 
And beating time there, every one, 

With lips that laughed and eyes that glistened, 
Like roses burning in the sun 

Some happy children sat and listened. 

And scarce less innocent than they 

He gave a nod of merry cheer. 
Blew out his cheeks with fresher play, 

And blew the strain out loud and clear. 
Clear as the whistling nightingale 

He blew the tuneful moment's fancies, 
Sweet airs of ancient Innisfail, 

Or graveside keene, or fleet-foot dances. 

And when he ceased, and fain would leave 

The spot, with slower step and slower, 
One caught his hand, and one his sleeve. 

And led him to their mother's door. 
They brought him honey, brought him bread, 

They swarmed about, a pretty rabble, 
And still he heard, when farther sped. 

The music of their unknown babble. 



8 GOLDSMITH'S WHISTLE, 

And going on, he knew not where, 

Feet somewhat sore, eyes somewhat dim, 
A shadow fell upon the air. 

And suddenly one went with him — 
The shadow of remembered song, 

The memory of a mighty singing. 
That made the way, late hard and long. 

Light with the music round it ringing ; 

Carolan's singing, long removed. 

The last of the great bards who blew 
Life through old ballads, whom men loved. 

By the same token, whom kings slew. 
Still could our wanderer see again 

The streaming beard, the tattered camlet, 
The shouldered harp whose throbbing strain 

Brought greeting glad in hall and hamlet. 

Not as perchance in elder days. 

When daised ladies bent to hear. 
And the torch shed its fitful blaze 

On bull-hide shield and restless spear. 
While some old minstrel, gaunt and hoar. 

With "Dathi's Doom " made broadswords rattle, 
And the wild song of "Argan Mor " 

Stirred all their hearts to sudden battle ; 



GOLDSMITH'S WHISTLE. 2 

But as beside some cabin door 

The harp was strung to gentler tune, 

And hushed the babe the mother bore, 
And hushed the grandam's hapless croon. 

While " Usna's Children " called the tear. 
And lovers, moved with tenderer feeling, 

Felt all their pulses bound to hear 

" Cushla-ma-chree " and soft "Lough Sheeling.' 

What music blown on every gale 

Old Carolan was playing then ! 
What hero's chant, what banshee's wail, 

Our happy wanderer heard again ! 
The Desmond's love he heard once more 

Sweet Catherine MacCormac gracing. 
And saw upon Killarney's shore 

O'Donohue's White Horses racing. 

Far off the windy music crept 

To silence ; and the startled youth 
Laughed at the sudden thought that leapt — 

He was a minstrel, too, forsooth ! 
Like Carolan, he also went 

To no one but his pipe a debtor, 
The earth his bed, the sky his tent — - 

A minstrel he, for want of better ! 



• GOLDSMITH'S WHISTLE. 

From village green to green his way 

He, too, should pay with pleasant tunes, 
While quiet folk, at close of day. 

Broke bread, or in the idle noons. 
He, where he saw two lovers lean, 

Could slyly play a " Mina-meala," 
And should a loiterer mischief mean 

Could give the rousing " Fague a ballagh ! " 

And many a jolly catch complete 

Ballymahon should lend him then ; 
The "Groves of Blarney," heavenly sweet 

And sad, should melt the hearts of men ; 
Unwritten song his thoughts o'er-ran. 

From misty time, with stirring story. 
Here came the " Humming of the Ban," 

And here came " Garryone in Glory ! " 

What bliss, what power, the soul to lead, 

The tear, the smile, a hurrying slave ! 
Oh, Music, with your rudest reed. 

This one to life and hope you gave ! 
No more the shady hedge and copse ; 

The lad forsook the sheltering byway, 
Took out his whistle, tried its stops. 

And bravely trudged along the highway. 



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GOLDSMITH'S WHISTLE. 



25 



As fabled beasts before the lyre 

Fell prone, so want and hunger fled ; 
The way was free to his desire, 

And he like one with manna fed. 
The world, the world, for him was meant. 

Cathedral towers, and Alpine torrents ! 
He trod a measure as he went, 

And piped and sang his way to Florence ! 

Great wit and scholar though he be, 

I love, of all his famous days. 
This time of simple vagrancy 

Ere youth and bliss had parted ways. 
With what a careless heart he strayed. 

Light as the down upon a thistle, 
Made other hearts his own, and paid 

His way through Europe with a whistle ! 




SAMUEL JOHNSON 
IN UTTOXETER MARKET 







OTORIES there are in the world which make 
*^ the heart ache with their sadness, 

Stories of war and of want, stories of horror and 

death, 
Parting of lovers forever, wrongs ending only in 

madness, 
Mourning of mothers for those who scarce knew 

the sweetness of breath. 



Not such a story as any of these is the tale I shall 

tell you, 
Through chains or conspiracies here nobody suffers 

or dies. 
Simple it is, my child, as anything ever befell you, 
And yet when I chance to recall it I find there 

are tears in my eyes 
29 



30 IN UTTOXETER MARKET. 

Ah, there are chains full as strong as dungeon 

chains binding the prisoner, 
But none hear them clank when remorse comes to 

murder the peace. 
Nor torture is worse than the still small voice that 

makes you a listener. 
That seldom in all a long life gave the one that I 

speak of release. 

Strong was the sun in Uttoxeter Market and sharp 
were the showers there. 

Where the poor bookseller held his stall upon fair- 
ing days ; 

Making his two-penny bargains many and long- 
were the hours there 

Spent by the debt-ridden man, worn with the world 
and its ways. 

Books of the day were about him, and books that 

were ancient and far-fet, 
All a good company, golden and silvern their words, 
Yet hushed were their voices when fair-day came 

in Uttoxeter Market, 
Stilled by the bleating of calves and the lowing of 

herds. 



IN UTTOXETER MARKET. 31 

What would the good-wife with warble of Shake- 
speare or speech of Sylvester, 

Bouncing about on her pillion, with butter and 
eggs on her lap — 

Better her pocket-piece tossed to the tumbling 
clown or the jester. 

She with an eye to a ribbon, she to a grogram, 
mayhap ! 

What would the yeoman with blackletter folio, or 

pages of Latin, 
Tales of Venetian adventurers, troublous to spell — 
He had his filly to brag of, shining and sleeker 

than satin. 
He had his little black pigs and his yearlings to 

sell ! 

Hard was the task then, believe me, to earn the 

poor shilling so needed, 
Sore ached the old bookseller's back, and sore 

ached his pride. 
Yet often and often he thought how lightly the 

time would have speeded 
If he could only have had there his son by his 

side. 



32 IN UTTOXETER MARKET. 

Dear was the boy to his heart, dearer perhaps that 
disaster 

Had scarred his sad face with the evil that good 
Queen Anne's touch had not stayed — 

Was there a work on his shelves of which the boy 
was not yet master ? 

Was there a lad in all Litchfield not by his book- 
lore dismayed ? 

Oft the old father turned over some scheme that 

should send him to college, 
Surely with barely a crust were he and the mother 

content, 
Bitter the trial to think they must starve this 

yearning for knowledge 
While gold all over the kingdom for frivolous 

pleasure was spent. 

Strong was the sun on that day when all of his 
ails so oppressed him, 

Long and laborious the walk, and heavy his heart 
with his care — 

Could the boy go in his place, for once, how kindly 
'twould rest him, 

Could he but linger, for once, at home in his easy- 
chair ! 



IN UTTOXETER MARKET. 35 

Did the boy hear him ariglit ? He go to Uttoxeter 
Market ? 

He with his tremors and scars, he with his beg- 
garly clothes, 

He with his purblind eyes, for every wit's sally a 
target. 

He to hawk ballads for ribalds and boors with 
their laughter and oaths ? 

Betimes, were there not at the door every morn- 
ing three lads out of many, 

One bowing the back to receive him, the others 
supporting his state? 

Was he not first in the classes ? Did they com- 
pare him with any ? 

He, who had writ Greek pentameters to stand in 
a stall and to wait ? 

Yet oft on the long-withdrawn highway the sight 
of a tired old man walking, 

As sunshine and sunshower succeeded, that morn- 
ing swam o'er the boy's eyes, 

With the call of the doves overhead came the sound 
of a voice that was hawking 

Wares that few wanted, a weary old voice that 
was quavering with sighs. 



36 IN UTTOXETER MARKET. 

That was the morning when, chmbing for apples, 

he came across Petrarch, 
And nothing to him was the world then for hour 

after hour. 
Nothing was bookworm or beggar, nothing was 

Caesar or Tetrarch, 
He in Italian gardens lost like a bee in a flower ! 

But seeing again the white face, out of which life 

and courage were sinking. 
Did his heart smite him to meet there the tender 

reproach of that gaze ? 
When at nightfall, all sore and disheartened, the 

father sat dreaming and thinking. 
Did there not cross the boy's fancy the difference 

between their two days ? 

One in the heat and the hurry of barter, the cry- 
ing and calling, 

Dizzy and dazed with the noise, longing for twi- 
light's relief — 

One in green coolness and shadow, with murmur- 
ous waters soft falling. 

And sweet was the melody round him, and sweet 
was the myrtle's crushed leaf ! 



IN UTTOXETER MARKET. 39 

All at once such a warmth of affection, such flood 

of regretting, 
Rushed to the heart of the boy, with such fervor 

of pity and grief — 
Ah, if he only had spoken it, then had been space 

for forgetting. 
Nor of sorrows to haunt a whole lifetime had that 

been the chief ! 

" Unfilial, undutiful child," his words went repeat- 
ing, repeating, 

And still, as the tone of the gong in the isles of 
the orient wrought. 

Touched with the tap of a finger, rolls mightily 
swelling and beating 

Till it fills the whole sky with its sound, were 
those words in his thought. 

Still did they sigh in his thought, when the father 

had sought his long slumber. 
And he in his nest of singing-birds, in the old 

university town, 
Filled night with revel and madcap pranks, or days 

without number 
Bathed in Castalian waters, and gathered the bays 

for his crown. 



40 IN UTTOXETER MARKET. 

Still they resounded about him, in all the ripe 
years, with their grieving, 

Hid in his work, while the murmur of fame bab- 
bled on like a brook. 

Work that grew glorious what time the evergreen 
chaplet was weaving — 

Ah, what a fragrance those bays have to-day, 
though pressed in a book ! 

Umpire of scholars at last, and heir of all learn- 
ing owned loudly. 

Poets, and painters, and players, confessed to his 
mastery each. 

Princes and statesmen inquired of him, even the 
king sought him proudly — 

He the king of the people, and he the king of 
their speech ! 

But still through his plaudits resounded the words 
once so long ago uttered, 

"Unfilial, undutiful child," till no more could he 
bear his own sighs, 

And whenever the leaves of his book he dreamily 
fingered and fluttered 

Swam there the white old face with the tender re- 
proach of its eyes. 




PERCHANCE HE WAS DOING A PENANCE. 



IN UTTOXETER MARKET. 43 

Sharp fell the showers then, one fair-day, across 

the Uttoxeter Market, 
And, jostled and hustled and chided, another old 

man trod its ways ; 
Eager the crowd and the cries as of yore, while 

he stood there the target 
For every wit's sally, the magnet for every lout's 

gaze. 

Where once was the bookseller's stall, stood the 
burly old fellow, 

Purblind, unwieldy, bare-headed in all of the rain, 

Sharing the gape of the rustics with smart Punchi- 
nello, 

Half like a Caliban, half like a demigod writhing 
in pain. 

Naught of the flout and the fleer did he know, or 

the jibes that were spoken, 
Old memories, old forms thronged about him, there 

in the market-place, 
Old voices fell sweet on his ear till his heart was 

half broken, 
Prayers parted his lips, I think, and tears poured 

down over his face. 



44 IN UTTOXETER MARKET. 

Perchance he was doing a penance with strange 
superstition, 

Erst he refused the deed in the strength of his 
selfish shame, 

Now, fifty long years and more gone, in impassioned 
contrition, 

Known the world over, he stood there, and hum- 
bled his pride and his fame. 

Let wild Hebrew chief or Greek King offer up his 
heart's treasure — • 

Better than sacrifice, once said the prophet, it is to 
obey — 

Yet costly as any, the name and the glory, I mea- 
sure. 

Offered up on the shrine of Uttoxeter Market that 
day ! 



BLIND MILTON 




Dark were the shadows of the room 
As Valombrosa's green-arched gloom ; 
Only the organ-pipes' dim row 
Sent through the dusk a golden glow, 
As yearning for the Master's hand 
Their slumbering secrets to command 
And pour wild music out, until 
Deep melancholy's sweetest will 
Had utterance, luxurious woe 
In silver thunders sobbing; slow. 



For his was all the subtle art 
Of melody that breaks the heart 
With rapture. And delicious shocks, 
Sweet as the honey of the rocks 
To other sense, well did he know 
From dulcet stops to breathe and blow- 

49 



50 BLIND MILTON. 

Tones swelling into gathering tune, 
Like dark waves swelling to the moon, 
While the rapt soul sank whelmed and drowned, 
Lost in the tumult of vast sound ! 

And all that larger music, too. 
The music of our speech, he knew ; 
Word meeting word in melting rhyme 
As birds sing in the dewy prime, 
Fleet syllables to ordered ways 
Moving in pomp of ringing phrase 
And haunting memory with their line, 
Like mighty clarions clear and fine 
On mountain echoes lingering long — 
Great Milton, Master of all song ! 

Now in the gloom the Master sate, 
Blind, silent, old, and desolate. 
Yet full the light about the pole 
And firmament of his high soul ! 
And there great forms around him came. 
He heard sweet voices call his name. 
He fought old fights and, bearding fate, 
Splendid and perfect shaped the State. 
Still his blood burns, his chamber rings, 
As when he bandied words with kings \ 




TONES SWELLING INTO GATHERING TUNE, 
LIKE DARK WAVES SWELLING TO THE MOON. 



BLIND MILTON. 53 

There, too, came pictures of the days, 
With free feet set in fortunate ways, 
When, winged with youth and poesy, 
The under heaven of Italy 
Was his — -just after that glad prime 
When Comus led his sylvan mime, 
And, as some spring in sunshine slips, 
"L' Allegro" bubbled from his lips — 
And his did hoar horizons bend 
With Galileo for his friend ! 

But yesternight, it seemed, that hour 

He climbed to find the lonely tower 

Of Arcetri, where the sad sage 

Sat like some older archimage 

' Midst his black arts, who weighed the sun. 

Saw hidden moons their courses run. 

Watched the earth spin, and wrought his spell 

Even from the Inquisition's cell, 

And, while the door slid in its grooves, 

Cried to himself, "And still it moves!" 

Had Galileo seen the youth 
Climbing the hill, the rose, in sooth. 
Bright on his cheek as on a girl's. 
Along his shoulder yellow curls, 



54 



BLIND MILTON. 

And lithe and strong his limbs, his tread 

Like one who walks on air instead 

Of common earth, he might have thought 

Some young Greek god his wand had brought 

Had the remorseless heavens spared 

Sight to the eyes their depths had bared ! 

Yet could but his old heart rejoice 
At the fresh sweetness of that voice, 
And with high converse fill the hour 
Ere darkness wrapped the lonely tower. 
Ah ! what a night, my Milton, then 
Opened the deep skies to thy ken, 
Vv^'hen Galileo raised his glass 
And bade the great procession pass, 
With spirits quickening from their cars. 
With dancing of the daedal stars ! 



There belted planets, horned moons, 
Swam as to rhythm of unheard tunes 
There, circling in far frosty lines, 
Old Mazzaroth led out his signs ; 
And as his race some lampad runs 
Ran red Arcturus with his sons. 



BLIND MILTON. 57 

Where this white host their lustre trailed 
Were these the Pleiades unveiled ? 
Whose was this sword-flame cleft the sky ? 
And was that Ashtoreth went by ? 

Ah, what strange joys that fateful hour 
Brought to him on the lonely tower ! 
What wild throbs called his soul to arms 
With starry challenge like alarms 
From silver trumpets, while his sense 
Swooned in eclipse, and power immense 
Swept up with him and turned the keys 
Upon undreamed eternities ! 
What depths he pierced, what glories trod, 
Till the last glory showed him God ! 

Alas, alas, how fallen here 

These long years later ! Sphere o'er sphere 

So that Great Spirit fell before 

From heights of heaven. Now heaven no more 

For him who, darkling, blind, and old. 

Sees morning's rose nor evening's gold. 

The smile of children sees, nor eyes 

Tender as stars in twilight skies. 

Sovereigns dishonor, friends disown. 

Blind, in the dark, he sits alone. 



58 BLIND MILTON. 

Alone ? Who throng the portals then, 

Companions towering more than men? 

Into what amplitude of space 

Open the walls of that sad place ? 

What courts where, white as ancient frost, 

Stand seraphs, with their wide wings crossed, 

Where shining captains come and go. 

Where tides of battle ebb and flow, 

And where, as in the farthest blue. 

The wars of heaven are fought anew ! 

Alone, when from the outer towers 
Lean Dominations, Virtues, Powers ? 
When, in wan splendor Lucifer 
Pauses till all the pulses stir. 
With Uriel, of the Seven that one 
Whom John saw standing in the sun ? 
And blind, who with undazzled sight 
Meets the inviolate source of light, 
And, while archangels keep the posts. 
Sees face to face the Lord of Hosts ? 

Oh, Milton, singing thy great hymn 
And quiring with the cherubim. 
Thou art not blind, or sad, or old, 
Thou hast no part in dark grave-mould. 



BLIND MILTON. 6i 

Forever fair and blithe and young 

And deathless as thy golden tongue ! 

The nightingale upon thy bough 

Sang never half so sweet as thou, 

And could'st thou only sing to me 

I would be blind that thou misht'st see ! 



BESIDE THE OUSE 




COWPFH- 



How often, in my childish days, 
Pausing amid her many cares. 

My mother used to tell to me 

The simple tale of Cowper's hares. 

The slender history never tired, 

Each pretty puss seemed half my own, 

And real as the sounds I knew 

Their sad and kindly playmate's tone. 

And, later, with the lines he wrote 
His mother, in as hearty grief. 

The tears poured down my little face 
To run with his along the leaf. 
65 



66 BESIDE THE OUSE. 

And so, you see, I always loved 

The gentle poet ; and if word, 
Ever so idle, went abroad 

Concerning Cowper, that I heard. 

Thus, it may be, this story came ; 

And if the whole be hardly true. 
Yet one so like it surely chanced 

That, as I heard, I tell it you. 

Sweet clouded soul ! But as the pearl 

In heaven's great gate, whose clouded light 

Was heaven's own lustre filtering through — 
A soul was never made more white ! 

And yet he thought that soul was dark 
With foul desires, and soiled with sin. 

And when he swept and garnished it 
There seven devils entered in. 

And far in black eternities. 

While wild cold tremors o'er him ran, 
He saw himself engulfed and lost, 

Lost to the love of God or man ! 



BESIDE THE OUSE. 



67 



He who loved God with childish faith. 
Who loved his fellow-man with joy, 

Who passed his long quiescent days 
In every innocent employ ! 




COWPER AND HIS HARES. 



But still the blur upon the brain 

Compelled him with the monstrous boast 

His the unpardonable sin, 

The sin against the Holy Ghost ! 



68 BESIDE THE OUSE. 

Friends might be pitying, tender tears 
Dear Mary Unwin's eyes might dim — 

They, first of all, the vile truth known, 
Anathemas must hurl at him ! 

Malignant blur ! It wrapped the world 
At morning. And when night was deep 

He shuddered, by a flaming sword 
Shut from the paradise of sleep. 

He walked his garden, turned his books, 

In an impenetrable gloom ; 
The sunshine seemed a winding-sheet, 

A child's light laugh a sound of doom. 

And could there gladness be with those 
Of death and foul decay the slaves } 

They who were happy only danced 

Where roses masked the yawning graves ! 

Naught in the world he saw but death, 
And after death — ah, what fell curse 

Had withered love in that dark power. 
The power that ruled the universe ! 



BESIDE THE OUSE. 71 

As when the moon swims large and low 
O'er level lands, and up her height 

Come creeping vapors from the marsh 
To veil her melancholy light — 

Then slowly steals a greater gloom, 

Earth's mightier shadow sweeping there, 

Till swoons the orb in blind eclipse — 
So his dejection was despair. 

Despair! And wherefore live to feel 

Its pangs, when everlasting sleep 
Hung but one moment's reach away — 

That sleep so cold, so white, so deep ! 

No, no, he would not longer bear 

This loathsome agonv of fear ! 
The horrors of the vast unknown — 

Those horrors were about him here ! 

Where softly flowed the river Ouse 

Through dell and dingle sparkling chill. 

With willows whitening to the wind, 

The pools were deep, the pools were still. 



72 BESIDE THE OUSE. 

In some dark pool were place for him, 
Were peace, profoundest peace, at last, 

Were rest beneath the placid flow — 
His rest, before the night were past ! 

With eager haste he hailed his man. 
Mounted beside him in the chaise; 

Nerved as the bow-string to the shaft 
That night he went his devious ways. 

A mile or two of lonely lane, 
A turning, and the river crept 

Glimmering beside the path he knew, 
And on its breast the lilies slept. 

The night was dark, the wind was up 
Chasing the stars with cloud on cloud, 

Now stripped a great sky bare, and now 
Hung all the heavens in a shroud. 

But he nor fleece of stars nor cloud 

Beheld, nor heard the shrill wind blow ; 

Forces of night and evil, he 

Defied them, stupefied with woe. 



BESIDE THE OUSE, 

He did not heed the fragrant way 
Where wanton bramble-roses grew, 

Now where great flowering branches stretched 
And brushed his face with showers of dew. 

And when from sheltered nightingales 
Far off the bubbling flute-note stole 

On long swells of the wind, he heard 
Only the cry of some lost soul. 

Naught of the wonted way he marked ; 

He saw no turning of the lane, 
Nor constellations wheeling high — 

Lost in his revery of pain. 



He only saw the dusky pool 

With lilies floating on its breast. 

Where stars flashed, too, with breaking rays, 
Where all things bade to dreamless rest. 

How slumberously above would move 
Those waters dallying on their way ; 

How cool the quiet depths should be 
After this torrid fever's sway ! 



75 



76 BESIDE THE OUSE. 

The old horse kept his moping pace, 
The man beside him dozed once more ; 

He had not thought the way so far — - 
Had the lane left the river-shore ? 

Again in moody musings plunged, 

He noted not the winding road 
Far from the reedy river-bed 

Where Ouse among his rushes flowed. 

The wind went down ; from distant farms 
The cocks crowed with their rousing cheer ; 

A silver ether swathed the east 

Where one great star hung like a tear. 

A bird half warbled in his sleep, 
Another answered him and woke, 

And all the leafy countryside 

To clangor of wild music broke ; 

And odors met him full of balm ; 

Pallid he saw the fainting blue, 
Peace in the sky of rosy gold — 

And in his heart what strange peace, too ! 



BESIDE THE OUSE. 79 

For as the way through hedgerows wound, 

The way famiUar grown of late, 
In rainbows glowed his garden-side, 

The old horse paused before his gate ! 

All night, in vain, he sought the pool 
Where still the glimmering river flowed. 

All night in vain pursued his end. 
Purblind along the circling road. 

All night he sought with sense absorbed 
His solemn tryst with death to keep, 

All night some power withstood — that power 
Which holds the planets where they sweep ! 

Was it, indeed, that mighty power 

Which sways the stars and feeds the sun, 

That led this poor bewildered man 
Ere he was utterly undone ? 

He thought so. And he gathered hope, 
And life's pale flame streamed up anew. 

If other power — I cannot name 

Its sweet puissance. Pray can you .■" 



A SPLENDID FIRE 




How dim, how drear, these narrow streets, 
These London streets before the dawn ! 

What solitude the stroller meets, 

What sense of human life withdrawn ! 

Down alleys where the darkness gropes 
What mad and mocking phantoms lurk — 

Phantoms of daydreams and of hopes 
Fled to thin air and lost in murk ! 



Daydreams once all his own, and hopes 
That, fluttering gay with frolic sports, 

Led him a witch-dance up the slopes 
Beyond his quiet college courts ; 
83 



4 A SPLENDID FIRE. 

Up to the town with all its sway, 

Its stir of letters and of art, 
Players, and playhouse, and the play 

Where he should bear his tragic part — 

Through midnight streets, as now, should bear, 
Forlorn and fierce, his tragic part, 

No bright hopes beckoning, but despair 
Laying a chill hand on his heart. 

Fair Magdalen tower, bright Oxford spires, 

In fancy fading on the view, 
How softly fall your topmost fires 

As down these streets he looks at you ! 

How kindly seems, this lonesome night, 
The shelter that you used to give 

While in your walls he longed for flight, 
And longed a larger life to live. 

And he the larger life full soon 

Has lived, and all its joys has learned. 

Has touched an antique lyre to tune — 
And song and singer have been spurned. 



A SPLENDID FIRE. 87 

For, all the passionate strain he sung, 

The lyric line, the echoing ode, 
Upon insensate ears has rung. 

And round unanswering hearts has flowed. 

Forth for the plaudit all a-flush 

His whole soul leaned — and not a cry 

Gave him acclaim. Into that hush 
What should he do but sink and die ! 

That awful hush, where dreams, inspired, 

A chord of voices heard instead, 
Voices of those his soul desired 

As starving children long for bread. 

And, fair illusive folly, too, 

Fame spread her wings of rainbowed gauze — 
Now silence where her trumpet blew. 

And darkness where her dazzle was. 

An instrument of sweetest sound 

Where all ^olian murmurs swim, 
Tune under tune in subtlest round — 

How had the world entreated him ! 



5 A SPLENDID FIRE. 

A sacred anger beads his brow, 
And of a sudden stays his breath ; 

Since all the world rejects them, now 
His songs shall have a glorious death ! 

Along the streets with heedless haste 
He strides to iind his dingy room, 

No more the midnight oil to waste — ■ 
A greater flame shall light its gloom ! 

With trembling hands he tears the leaves 
And scatters them about the hearth ; 

A wasting sob his bosom heaves, 
He laughs with half-demoniac mirth. 

There lie they, darlings of his life. 
His life of six-and-twenty years ; 

In them what swift triumphant strife, 
In them what thrills and joyous tears ! 

This line — the day it came, a flood 
Of rosy light o'erflowed his brain ; 

And that — so swelled the bubbling blood 
His heart ached with delicious pain. 



A SPLENDID FIRE. 91 

Sheet after sheet, and leaf on leaf — 
The night is cold, the night is dark, 

The night consorts with such a grief; 
Now haste, and fetch the kindling spark ! 

Ah, what a billowy flame is that 
Leaps up the chimney in its flight, 

Was ever fire such lustre gat 
To squander on the outer night ! 

What colors flash along the blaze 

That spreads its wings, and soars and dips ! 
So burns, long soaked in salty sprays. 

Driftwood of wrecked and stranded ships. 

Now curls the precious manuscript 

Of Music on the Grecian Stage, 
And none the sweetness that it dripped 

Shall know, to the remotest age. 

What light it casts about the place ! 

How paints upon the eager eye 
The festal throng, the sandy space, 

The sounding sea, the azure sky ! 



2 A SPLENDID FIRE. 

While monstrous shadows steal in groups - 

Medea's dagger in her eyes, 
Electra, broken-hearted, droops, 

Orestes from his Furies flies. 

It shrivels in a blackening scroll ; 

Gone those great shadows half divine, 
But still on the reluctant coal 

The swarming sparks re-write the line. 

Another to the fire he flings ; 

He listens, and his face is wan — 
For him, as for the Spanish Kings, 

Tolls the great Bell of Arragon ! 

At last, at last, let glory burst 

From one sole page athwart the gloom 

That drinks it as a thing athirst 
And blossoms into morning bloom ! 

While all the thronging "Passions" troop, 
As once before they hurrying came. 

And for a flashing moment stoop 
Emblazoned on the ruddy flame : 



A SPLENDID FIRE. 



95 



Pale Melancholy, paler Fear, 

And Anger with his secret stings, 

Sport brandishing his beechen spear, 
Love shaking odors from his wings. 

They pass ; they fade ; his life fades, too, 
Hope waves no more her golden hair ; 

One only of the wondrous crew 
Lingers, in ashes — 'tis Despair. 

But splendid was the fire that roared, 
And full the woes and wild distress 

About it in libation poured, 

Lees of the wine of bitterness ! 



Surely no altar ever raised 

The smoke of sacrificial loads 
With loftier, sadder fires than blazed 

That night when Collins burned his odes ! 



WOODS OF WARWICK 




Pleasant, pleasant woods of Warwick, when the 

shaws are thick with summer : 
Green and golden, gloom and sunshine, leafy wealth 

of wilderness ; 
Velvet mosses plashing rainbows round the feet of 

any comer 
Lingering where the dew still lingers, branches 

droop, and odors press ; 
High above the castle towers ; down below the wild 

brook brawling ; 
And across a dream of sorrow, hark ! the nightin- 
gales are calling 
Far away in long-drawn depths of dusky dell and 

dark recess. 

99 



loo WOODS OF WARWICK, 

I was never there, were you, dear ? Yet at once, 

my eyelids closing, 
Thrice a hundred years have vanished and a tender 

hand I lay 
On this ancient tree-bole's furrows, crooked gnarls 

and knots, supposing 
When 'twas young a lad I know of chanced to stroll 

this self-same way ; 
Warbling wood-notes as he loitered, and, the blood 

in blushes bringing — 
While a cuckoo mocked, and madly many thrushes 

burst out singing — 
Here Will Shakespeare, it may happen, cut the 

name " Anne Hatheway ! " 



Thrush, or cuckoo ? Nay, beshrew me ! did he see 
that cuckoo mocking 

When he turned his head to listen and his fancy felt 
the spell ? 

In his hand — its sweetest secrets under old black- 
letter locking — 

Chaucer's was the verse he carried, opening where 
the pages tell 

Of the elf-queen and her people when the land was 
full of fairy. 



WOODS OF WARWICK. 



103 



Thrush, or cuckoo ? Nay, a gladsome spirit, deli- 
cate and airy, 
Nay, an airy spirit was it of the name of Ariel ! 




On the turf he threw him gaily with old Chaucer 

for his pillow ; 
Far along the level greenwood where he sent a 

happy eye 
Wind and boughs and latest sunbeams swept in 

billow over billow, 
Oxlips and the nodding violets danced between him 

and the sky. 



I04 WOODS OF WARWICK. 

Wild thyme and the sweet musk-roses sent their 

fragrance out to find him, 
There a jewelled snake slipped leaving his enamelled 

skin behind him, 
Bees with brimming honey-bags, and big and burly, 

blundered by. 

Was he sure it was a snake then wore the gilded 

weed and cleft it ? 
" Weed," he murmured, " wide enough to wrap a 

fairy in." And might 
That Titania be, who doffed the gauzy coverlid and 

left it. 
Hovering in the gentle gloom, and shining there in 

sheer delight .-' 
Was the bee that just sung by him, where the shade 

was deep and mellow. 
Kind Hobgoblin, loved of firesides, he the shrewd 

and knavish fellow. 
Was that Puck, the lob of spirits, merry wanderer 

of the niofht } 




WOOnS OF WARWICK. 105 

Evening siin forsook the forest, twilight gathered in 

the hollows ; 
Winds went rustling, dewy coolness fell like shadow 

on the air ; 
Where the new moon hung, the leaves stirred like 

the wings of darting swallows ; 
Where the new moon, slight and glorious, hung a 

sudden silver flare, 
In its lovely crescent swiftly stole a glimmering 

apparition. 
Lost among the tossing branches, half a dream and 

half a vision, 
Oberon, the king of fairies, in that moment passing- 
there ! 



Hist ! No whisper ! In the royal lustre who were 

these came trooping ? 
What gay swarm of silken banners, wings, and 

scarfs of damask dyes ? 
Topsy-turvy, hurly-burly, tripping, tumbling, soaring, 

swooping, 
All the elves in humming murmur of light laughs 

and rippling cries ! 



io6 WOODS OF WARWICK. 

Cobweb, floating through the darkness, filmy as a 

bat and slender ; 
Balancing above a poppy, Moth with wings of downy 

splendor ; 
And Peasblossom, flower or fairy, fluttering with the 

butterflies ! 



" Master ! " 'Twas a cry of music. Queen Titania's 
voice, oh hearken ! 

"Though, indeed, you know the summer still doth 
tend upon my state — " 

Breathe not, think not ! She all rosy glows while 
shadows round her darken ! 

" Yet I fain of other lands would tempt the pleas- 
ures, try the fate. 

Running stream no fairy ventures, witch nor war- 
lock crosses water. 

Woe betide the sorry elf if urchins of the great 
seas caught her ! 

Yet, beyond them, richer roses, sweeter nightingales 
must wait." 



WOODS OF WARWICK. 



109 




"into lands of antique story, master, you alone 
can send us." 



Have you, with a south-wind blowing heard a harp- 
string's silver shiver ? 

Oberon, the king, was speaking : " Fairy-land obeys 
my nod, 



no WOODS OF WARWICK. 

And, though like a forester I these groves may 

tread forever, 
Let me break a lance, I pray you, with some 

chapleted Greek god ! 
Into lands of antique story, Master, you alone can 

send us. 
One midsummer night's mad revel in Athenian 

forests lend us ! 
We are Gothic fairies, take us where the fauns of 

Greece have trod!" 

"Master, Master," chimed the chorus, "we are 

homebred English fairies, 
We the little people who, the old dame tells you, 

bless the hearth, 
Sweep the dust behind the door, and churn the 

cream in lucky dairies, 
Dance within the nine-men's-morris, haunt the 

nightside with our mirth. 
Light us tapers from the waxen thighs of humble- 
bees, and cheery 
Blow our elfin horns and scatter when the stars do. 

But we weary. 
Long for other sports, and weary of this corner of 

the earth ! " 



WOODS OF WARWICK. iii 

Night came sweeping through the forest, soft her 

sombre garments trailing ; 
With a sound of gallant chiding distant hounds 

began to bay ; 
Like a shoal of dancing waters in the moon, the 

crew went sailing, 
Like a cloud of jflying rose-leaves when the winds 

are up and away. 
" Following darkness like a dream," sighed Will 

Shakespeare half in sadness. 
Underneath his breath, and spelled in this mid- 
summer night's dream madness. 
All the woods of Warwick ringing with the elfin 

roundelay. 




WARWICK CASTLE, FROM THE AVON. 



